United Faculty’s proposal would expand the contract from five to 24 pages as it seeks to add back items stripped out when changes were made to state law limiting public employee collective bargaining.
Many of those provisions became part of a new faculty handbook, but Hawbaker noted “that a current or future administration could sweep this language away, as well. As UNI prepares to search for a new provost, the protection of a contract is even more important practically and symbolically,” she added. Provost Jim Wohlpart announced last week that he is leaving UNI in June to become president of Central Washington University.
Hawbaker outlined how faculty salary increases have been outpaced by inflation and the consumer price index over more than a decade as well as impacts by other factors, such as growth in employee insurance costs.
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She called for a boost in the minimum base salary. Now ranging from $42,351 for an instructor to $68,245 for a full professor, it would rise to a range of $43,000-$68,329 under the proposal.
The union also proposed expanding contract guidelines to include minimum salary reference points in five-year increments going up to 25 years. At the top of that range, an instructor would be paid $67,286 next year and a full professor $94,502. In 2022-23, year two of the proposal, the table shows a 1.5% increase across the board.
